Cypher
by roane
Summary: When Sherlock fails to solve a case in time, John will need to be there to pick up the pieces. (This is for reapersun, who won me in a Tumblr author giveaway, and who gave me an utterly gorgeous piece of art as my prompt.)


**A/N: This story was the result of an art prompt by the magnificent reapersun. won't let me post it here, but you can see it here: ao3/works/594255**

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"Don't touch me."

The words were a shot across the bow. John jerked his hand away from Sherlock's shoulder, nearly spilling the tea he was setting on the desk next to Sherlock's laptop. "Sorry? Everything okay?" It wasn't, but he had to ask anyway, knowing that Sherlock would lie.

"Fine. I just need to think." Sherlock stared intently at his screen, comparing it to the first of a large stack of files on the left side of the desk. John sat down across from him at his own laptop and tried to figure out how to start his next blog entry.

The case had gone badly. So badly, in fact, that Sherlock hadn't said a word about it since, not even when the murderer was finally arrested. The problem was that when they'd taken the case, the man hadn't been a murderer.

John sighed and rubbed at his forehead. He opened up a new post:

_Condolences to the Furlong family of Norfolk on their loss. I don't have the heart to write more at the moment._

It wasn't good enough—nothing could be, after what happened—but John hit 'post' anyway.

"John."

He looked up to see Sherlock glowering at him. "What?"

"Shut up."

John rolled his eyes, aiming for levity. "Did I type too loud? Was I breathing?"

"Just be quiet. I need to think." Sherlock tangled his fingers in his curls and scrubbed at his scalp.

John started to say something, then thought better of it. He closed his laptop and picked up his mug, headed for the chair in front of the fireplace. The air in the sitting room was storm-tense, vibrating. John had spent the two days previous feeling the tension rise and wondering if there was anything he could do about it.

He'd just settled in when the storm broke. Sherlock stood up and swept the stack of folders off his desk, taking the mug of tea with it. Paper seesawed in white drifts to the floor and the mug shattered. Tea spattered over everything in sticky droplets. "Damn it, John!"

John jumped to his feet, barely remembering to shove his laptop off to the side.

"I can't think, I can't focus, you're right there taking up space and getting in the way." Sherlock's hands waved as he spoke, jerky, fluttering movements like a frantic bird battering itself against a cage.

"Sherlock, if you need me to go for a walk or something, you can just say—"

"It happens even when you're not here!" He pointed at John. "You're inside my head. I can't tuck you away when I need to think, you're always _right there_. This was a terrible idea."

"This?"

Sherlock waved a hand between the two of them. "_This_. You and me. It's not working."

John sat back in the chair, the words slamming into his chest. "Sherlock, if this has to do with—"

"It doesn't. You're just... _inconvenient_."

John swallowed the angry reply that sat heavy on his tongue. He'd known this was coming, from the moment Lestrade had called them with the news about the Furlongs. Fighting to keep his voice low and steady, he asked, "What do you want me to do?"

"I want you out of my head," Sherlock said. "I want you out."

It wasn't the worst case scenario he'd imagined, but it was close. "You want me to leave?"

"Yes. No." Sherlock pulled at his fringe as if trying to pull the answers out of his skull. "I don't know." He strode across the room and grabbed his coat.

"Where are you going?"

"Out." Sherlock vanished down the stairs, and John heard the front door slam. The floor was a mess. John pushed himself up out of his chair and went to get a broom and a tea towel.

While he cleaned up, John tried not to think about Elise Furlong, lying in hospital. The doctors thought she might eventually recover. Her husband Hugh was not so fortunate.

John had known the work was everything to Sherlock. This was the first time he'd seen him have all the evidence, and still fail. If Sherlock had broken the code containing the threat sooner...

John tried not to think about why he hadn't.

This was worse than Baskerville, worse than the doubt he'd seen on Sherlock's face then. A thousand times worse than hearing Sherlock deny John's friendship. Because now, of course, it was more than that. Or had been more than that.

He binned the last shards of the broken mug and went to look out the window. It was cold and wet, rain making shadow-shapes down the glass.

Sherlock was standing under a streetlight, seemingly oblivious to the pouring rain. He was hunched over, white vapour pluming from his mouth and nose—John couldn't tell for sure if it was from the cold or if he was smoking. He could tell that the stupid git was already drenched. John grabbed his jacket and headed down the stairs. He didn't bother pulling it on, just draped it over his head as he stepped out into the rain.

Sherlock tossed away a sodden cigarette butt as John reached him, and exhaled the last of the smoke into the night, face turned up into the rain.

"Sherlock?"

"It's my fault," he said, tilting his head over to look at John. Rain streamed down his face.

"It's really not," John said. He knew this argument. It was the same argument he had with himself every time he'd lost a patient. "Sometimes no matter what you do, it's not enough. You can't be responsible for everything, Sherlock."

"I should have been decoding that message, but all I could think about was your mouth on my cock. And now a man is dead."

John didn't have an answer for that.

"What do you think? If Mrs Furlong ever wakes up, we'll apologise to her. 'Terribly sorry your ex-boyfriend shot you, but the sex was fantastic!'" His lips curled back from his teeth, making him almost unrecognisable.

John's gut twisted into a vicious knot, making it hard to draw a breath. "All right, it was a mistake, obviously. Sherlock, everybody makes mistakes."

"I don't."

The sound that escaped John's mouth only approximated a laugh. "Yes you do, you make mistakes all the time!" He rubbed his forehead against his jumper sleeve, wiping away a few stray raindrops.

"Not before this," Sherlock said. "Not before you." He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand as if he was wiping away something distasteful. "This... involvement. It's a distraction I can't afford."

John wanted to argue. He wanted to list for Sherlock all the ways that he was better for having John around, for letting in emotions once in awhile. The words wouldn't come. He kept seeing Elise Furlong's face the day she came to the flat to ask for their help. He kept seeing the way Hugh Furlong had watched his wife with worried eyes. Those same eyes were sightless and staring up at the ceiling of the Furlongs' sitting room when they'd arrived, and Elise was bleeding from a gunshot wound to the head.

Maybe Sherlock was right. "If I thought it was the right thing, I would start looking for a new place tomorrow," he said.

"Perhaps you should." Sherlock wasn't looking at him.

"Do you really mean that?"

Sherlock didn't say anything, but just gave a small nod.

The ground was giving way beneath John's feet. It felt like the pavement was crumbling away in the rain. "Yeah." His throat ached. He felt the first bit of damp seeping through his coat, which was proving less water-resistant than advertised. It was stupid of him to keep standing out here. "Um. Don't stay out here long, all right?" Sherlock still wouldn't look at him. "I'll—leave you be then." He turned to go.

"John." Sherlock's voice was so soft, John nearly missed it beneath the dull roar of the rain. "I'm sorry."

John nodded once, a sharp jerk of his chin, then he stiffened his spine, and walked back into the flat.

He sat by the hearth until the worst of the chill went away. He didn't know how long Sherlock might stay outside, and wasn't sure he was ready to face him at any rate. Feeling like a coward, he dragged himself up the stairs to his room, a room he hadn't slept in in over a month. It was cold, but the sheets were clean. John stripped to his pants and fell into the bed. He lay staring at the ceiling for what felt like hours, trying to picture going back to bedsits and nothing but locum work. He fell asleep without hearing the door downstairs.

Sometime in the night, he awoke to the feel of damp curls pressing against his shoulder. Sherlock's breathing was deep and steady, his face pressed into the crevice between John's back and the pillow. John felt a flash of anger that faded into a deep ache. He wanted to wake Sherlock, kick him out of the bed, out of the room. Instead, he sighed and shifted his pillow beneath his head. The movement made Sherlock stir. He turned to press his face between John's shoulder blades, and he wrapped his arm around John's waist.

John's heart thudded painfully in his chest. The work was who Sherlock was, and he understood Sherlock put it first. But for Sherlock to just toss everything aside, out of what, fear? Shame? John wanted to hold Sherlock to the hurtful things he'd said outside. And yet, here, now, feeling Sherlock's skin pressed warm against his in the darkness of his bedroom, leaving was unthinkable.

"I couldn't sleep," Sherlock said, the words muffled against John's spine.

John laughed, a short sharp humourless sound. "You know, it's usually bad form to crawl into bed with someone you just broke up with."

Sherlock's arm tightened so fiercely John couldn't breathe. "I hate it," he said.

"Hate what?"

He didn't respond at first. Then: "_Needing_ you." He loosened his grip just before John had to ask him to. "It's messy."

Carefully, John covered Sherlock's hand with his own, then oh-so-gently pulled his arm away, scooting away from him so they weren't touching anymore. He rolled over, tucking his arms and legs almost into a ball. He could just make out the shape of Sherlock in the faint light from the window. "I know. That's why I'm leaving, remember?"

"I don't want you to." Sherlock sounded like a child who's been told the doctor has to give him a shot.

John tightened his mouth, licked his lips once, and didn't say _'You did earlier.'_ He asked, "What _do_ you want?"

"You. The work. All of it." John heard the sheets rustling and saw Sherlock's shadow shift as he propped his head on his hand. "I don't know how."

John sighed and reached back to turn on the bedside light. Sherlock blinked in the light, and John sat up, scooting to lean back against the headboard. "Nobody knows how, not at first." He paused. "I should have realised."

"Is this what other people do? Spend all of their time thinking about sex? Or about even more ridiculous things, like worrying if someone remembered their cab fare because it's raining outside and they're just getting over a cold? No wonder the world is full of idiots."

John smiled against the tightness in his throat. "I did remember it, and my umbrella too."

Sherlock frowned at him the way he usually did when John had missed an obvious point. "Of course you did, that was weeks ago. It's irrelevant now."

"Okay, so tell me what is relevant." He marveled that his voice sounded so calm, like he didn't want to shake the mad genius who'd crawled into his bed.

Sherlock flopped onto his back with a huff, hauling the duvet up to his chin. "The work is the most important thing." He paused, clearly holding something back.

That wasn't unexpected. John knew he was second place at best. "But?"

At first John didn't think he was going to get an answer. Finally: "But it's not the only thing. Not anymore."

"And that's bad?" John said.

"It's impossible to reconcile!" Sherlock slammed a hand against the mattress. "Having both seems impossible, not having both seems unbearable."

"What if both isn't an option?" John's voice was soft, and he looked straight ahead. "You asked me to leave. Did it occur to you that just changing your mind isn't enough to undo that?"

"Of course not." Sherlock sat up in the bed and turned to face him. "Why wouldn't it be enough? You don't want to leave. I don't want you to leave."

"What happens the next time a case goes badly, then? I can't—no, you—_you_ can't hold us hostage against the work. I hate what happened. It's eating me up, but even if you do everything exactly right, you could fail again. And is this going to happen then too?"

Sherlock turned around and rested his back against the foot of the bed. There was a softness around his eyes that made John's chest go tight. John felt Sherlock's gaze, but wouldn't meet his eyes. When he did finally speak, Sherlock's voice was low and harsh-edged. "I made a terrible mistake with the case. I made another one tonight. Don't—don't make me suffer for both of them." He took a deep breath. "Please."

The 'please' was what hit John the hardest. "I don't want to go, Sherlock, but I can't stay if you're going to throw a tantrum every time something goes badly."

"I did not throw a tantrum."

John met his eyes and just looked at him.

"All right, fine. I did." Sherlock swallowed, his jaw tightening with the movement. "I'm sorry, John. I know I'm—difficult—" John snorted "—shut up, I'm apologizing—I know I'm difficult, and I don't know how to do this properly. But I—please stay."

"We'll talk more tomorrow," John said.

"That's not a yes."

"Yeah well, it's not a no either, and that's as good as you're going to get from me at half-four in the morning." John smiled, just a little bit.

"Can I stay here?"

John pushed back the covers to give Sherlock room. "Come here. You'll freeze. But you have to let me sleep, okay?" He turned out the light and lay back down. Sherlock curled up behind him, and the last sound John knew before sleep was the soft susurrus of Sherlock's breathing in his ear.


End file.
